Yesterday Kissinger was a refugee and tomorrow he will be a refugee, but today he is a citizen. It’s no surprise that he is Secretary of State. Who can be better at the present than the Jew? The present is defined by the past and the future. The past and the future mercilessly drive the Jew into the present. The fugitive Jew must outwit his captor, a hostile present — or become a slave. A few goyim may flee their pasts and dash into the present. But the future? What is that to a world-owning goy? No, the Jew has all the advantages. Who but Disraeli could master the present? Fleeing the past and future, what choice did the poor man have but to become Prime Minister of England?
What does this have to do with Bluma the Beggar and the moon? They were my teachers. They taught me about the threads — Jewish threads. And I’m not a very quick student or I would have learned it long ago, just by looking down at my tzitzes, the fringes on the corners of my spiritual serape. A Jew looks at them and they remind him of the Commandments. Look at the tzitzes. You can see where the threads begin. You can see where the threads end. But who can comprehend those remorseless knots and mad twinings that occupy the middle? Only He who created them. And what if He isn’t talking? I looked down, but I didn’t see. I had to wait for the moon and Bluma the Beggar. Let me start at the beginning — that I know, or, at least, I think I do.
ROSH HASHANAH is the day of judgment. Whose judgment? Ours: yours, mine, everybody’s. You don’t want to go into court unprepared, so you begin preparing the month before. How do you prepare? Prayer, penitence, and charity avert the evil decree. They say that even the fish in the water are afraid in Elul, the month preceding the Day of Judgment, shouldn’t you be? What can you do in that month? Prayer is too difficult. You have to believe, really believe, and you have to concentrate. How you have to concentrate! If you do it right, it might transform your existence, but it would probably ruin your whole day. It’s one thing to pray, but to Pray — talking to God all the time could mess you up. To seek a little refuge is one thing: ten, two, and four, a little spiritual Dr. Pepper; to fall into a bottomless pit is another. Penitence is fine if you don’t like who you are. For a minor job, it’s a great nuisance. And for a major job, why bother? If you really don’t like yourself, why worry about what’s going to happen to a creep like you? The only thing left is charity. What else is there?
Charity is a difficult task. The recipient is not to be embarrassed. He should receive it anonymously. Proper charity is not an easy thing at all. In fact, charity is a misnomer. In Hebrew, it is called righteousness, which, as the name implies, is not just a hand in the pocket, but a heart and head in heaven. Nonetheless, righteousness can still be charity, a coin in the cup. Who knows if poor prayer is prayer? Who knows if poor penitence is penitence? But give a poor person money, and that’s charity. Definitely. And thank God, too. Where would we be without it? Prayer and penitence make for a dull world, whereas through charity you can meet some pretty interesting people.
In the awesome month of Elul before Rosh Hashanah, I was attending the morning prayers regularly. I’m not saying it helped, but did it hurt? What should I do in the mornings of Elul, watch the Today show? Do they ever blow the shofar on the Today show as a little Rosh Hashanah warm-up? And there’s another difference. Barbara Walters couldn’t care less about me. At the shtibl, I help make a minyan. The Off-Track Betting Corporation opened up an office around the corner on Broadway and we still have the best numbers game in town. Will we or won’t we hit ten? And, finally, a minyan. “Oy, a minyan, pray, pray!” We have the hottest game in town even though the betting parlor has dozens of minyans who arrive early, stay late, and donate regularly. Cash, too. None of this ten-dollars-anonymous stuff. If the shtibl were the Off-Track Betting parlor and the Off-Track Betting parlor were the shtibl, the Messiah would come, because everybody would be hitting the triple: a minyan in the morning, a minyan in the afternoon, and a minyan at night. How could the Messiah stay away? But the Messiah hasn’t come yet, and with action like that in the shtibl, how could I stay home and watch Barbara Walters interview a man who teaches dogs to dance? At the shtibl I am admired — if I am one of the first ten. At the shtibl I am loved — if I am the tenth. At the shtibl I am admonished — if I am late, eleven or higher. But that’s the chance you take. You can’t race without finishing out of the money occasionally. It’s the best game in town. Did Secretariat ever give anyone a glass of schnapps for his father’s yahrzeit? And his father was a somebody, Bold Ruler.
The action, however, occurs at the beginning of the service. By the time the final kaddish has rolled around, it’s out the door, get a paper, a cup of coffee, and off to work with the reproachful call of a poorly blown shofar pursuing me. During one such hasty exit, I met Bluma. She sat in the back at the bare kiddush table. A dark wooden cane rested against her leg. She was lost in reverie. As I approached, however, she snapped out of it and stood up.
“My dear man, can you help me for Rosh Hashanah, the New Year?”
She had a supplicating tone, but the major tone was one of inquiry. I gave her a dollar.
“God will bless you.”
“God bless you, too.”
“You’ll see,” she insisted.
THE average gift in the shtibl is fifteen cents to a quarter, but everyone gives. How can we not? There are so few of us; we barely have a minyan. The poor woman has been waiting. And sometimes she really must wait. We start later than other synagogues when we start on time, and most of the time, we only start looking for a minyan. And then we have to pray; there is, after all, a reason why we go through all this. So by the time the poor get to us, they have put in a hard day chasing after the more punctual and populous. Can you imagine what Elul must be like for those genuinely poor people, screaming about Rosh Hashanah and streaming from one synagogue to another with the interminable stillborn wail of the aborted shofar calls assailing them all over the West Side? It’s a wonder they bother to come to our shtibl at all. So I gave her a dollar. I never give enough charity anyway. The checks never get written. Like the shofar blasts, they come out only for Rosh Hashanah. Yes, of course I’ll give. It’s a worthy charity... before Rosh Hashanah.
I went out the door as she remained at her post. I had gotten a good look at her. Gray hair closely cropped into short tufts gave her strong round face a mannish look. The plastic-rimmed glasses she wore did not detract from this impression. Nor did the neat, short-sleeved khaki tunic. Under the tunic, a simple dress. A clean, uniformed appearance. But Bluma wore something striking which both enhanced and enlivened the sense of uniform. She had on long, bright red socks originating somewhere in her low-cut white tennis shoes and terminating just below her knees. Yet it would be a mistake to think that from the waist up Bluma suggested a Foreign Legion sergeant and from the waist down a utility infielder for the Boston Red Sox. No, from head to toe, it was all Fenway Park. Her haunches angled casually onto her dark heavy cane the way old sluggers, the true students of the game, lean on their sacred allies around the batting cage, while inside at bat some young kid mercilessly tears at the ball with his impersonal stave, using only his lower nervous system. Great reflexes, but no glimmering that hitting is an intellectual art and a social one; be good to your bat and it may be good to you. Even Bluma’s eyeglasses seemed oddly reminiscent of baseball. And so did her stature, too small for her size. Not stocky, although she was, so much as the suggestion that she might have been bigger. And, too, she might have been better, or at least more successful. Although her career wasn’t going to put her into the Hall of Fame, someone else in her family had made it. Who else could she be? Oh, those Red Sox! How could I not be taken with a beggar who looked like Dom DiMaggio? Barbara Walters — feh! feh! feh!
So I left the shtibl with a light, airy feeling: Rosh Hashanah at Fenway Park with a good, a very good, an excellent — but not a great — cantor in center field. Let the Young Israel, the Jewish Center, crowd have Yankee Stadium with the world-famous, nonpareil, vunderbarisher cantor, Joltin’
Joe DiMaggio, the fifty-six game angel, chanting under the pagan, funereal monuments. (This stadium made possible through a generous donation of the Sultan of Swat.) You don’t want to look too good on Judgment Day, the Judge might get suspicious or jealous. Better a smaller scale with a little intimacy, a crummy Fenway, where fans attend for only one reason, love. And when God looks down hurriedly (He has to look everywhere on Rosh Hashanah), our good deeds can fill the shtibl’s small room. In Yankee Stadium our good deeds wouldn’t make it to left center field, much less to the monuments. And in the Jewish Center, they would smolder restlessly below the stained-glass windows. And you don’t want to leave all those stains uncovered on Rosh Hashanah. If it weren’t for crime in the streets, it would be theologically sound to squeeze a minyan into a telephone booth for Rosh Hashanah. Stuffed with good deeds, crammed with prayer, and direct dialing yet. Yes, Fenway Park for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; Yankee Stadium for Hanukkah and Passover.
THAT’S how I met Bluma. It was a Tuesday. The following Tuesday I looked up from my prayers to see her sitting at the empty table by the door. I got up and walked over to her. As I began to reach in my pocket, she waved me off.
“Finish praying first. It’s good for you.” I returned and finished praying. On my way out, I gave her a five-dollar bill. She took it and began to thank me, but as she drew it closer, she suddenly stopped.
“Hey, this is a five-dollar bill. You know that?”
“Yes, it’s for you.”
“You sure?”
“Take it. It costs a fortune to make Rosh Hashanah... chickens, wine, fish....”
“I don’t eat all that stuff,” she said, but she put the money into her pocket. She looked back up at me.
“Say,” she said, “you should have a happy New Year.”
“Thank you. You, too.”
“Don’t worry about me. God is good.” She paused a moment. “Say, are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife should have a happy New Year.”
“Thank you.”
“Any kids?”
“One.”
“Your baby should have a healthy New Year. Healthy, that’s the main thing.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?”
“A girl.”
“Don’t feel bad,” she commiserated. “Maybe the next one will be a boy.”
“Be well,” I said as I went out the door.
I descended to the street and had gone a few steps when I heard a voice calling, “Say! Say, you!” I turned around. Bluma was at the top of the stairs, her red socks reverberating in the clear morning light.
“Be well, too,” she called. “And be careful!”
The following Tuesday, again Bluma in the red knee socks. Bluma, however, is not the only individual who needs the help of the community. Some come more regularly, some less regularly. We get a mixed crowd: men, women, observant, unobservant, old, not so old. Why not? Along with the individual donation, the shtibl contributes institutionally. On the table where the Torah is read stand several pushkes, alms boxes. The two are complementary. What is Torah if not righteousness? The largest silver-colored alms box goes to our own local poor. Mr. Isaacson enthusiastically dumps the entire contents into the outstretched hands. Some don’t even wait for Mr. Isaacson. It’s their money, isn’t it? Why should they wait for him? No one dropped a coin into the box just to hear a clink or a clank. Mr. Isaacson lets them take. It is theirs. He lets them take — unless there are others who are entitled as well. Then it must be divided equally, and no thief Fagin ever trained could beat Mr. Isaacson to the pushke. Mr. Isaacson has good moves and, more important, great recovery. When his prayer shawl hoods his head, his phylacteries entwine him in holiness, and his whole being Prays, yes Prays; let someone surreptitiously and unfairly lift the pushke and Mr. Isaacson comes from nowhere to put a firm, guiding hand on the pushke. Jangling and unplundered, it returns to the table. It makes no difference whether Mr. Isaacson must come from behind, go over the top, or dart in from the side. Mr. Isaacson touches only the pushke, never the person. Touching the man would be a two-shot foul since you really cannot blame the poor cadger; he has to eat too. It’s a game attempt; it’s a clean block. No score; no foul. Isaacson is a defensive specialist. He never offends. The Bill Russell of the National Pushke Association. And Mr. Isaacson always enjoys the home-court advantage. Drive on Russell in Boston? Empty a pushke on Isaacson in the shtibl? You’ve got to be kidding!
That Tuesday someone was kidding. He’s always kidding. Sometimes he kids that he’s blind, sometimes lame, sometimes deaf. A real sense of humor! Mr. Isaacson had him covered before the pushke started to move. Bluma was waiting patiently in the back by the door. Mr. Isaacson gave the culprit a dirty look. This fellow has chutzpah. When he feigns blindness — white cane, cup, sigh, and all — on the IRT, he never even bothers with the local, only the express! I should see as well as he does. He begs real bread for imaginary children. He poses with bandaged hands, broken arms, crutches. You name it, he has faked it. No shame whatever! A scandal. But he gets. Not from me, but from Mr. Isaacson and the others.
“Mr. Isaacson, did you ever see him as a blind man in the subway?”
Mr. Isaacson laughed. “And he doesn’t even need eyeglasses like you and me.”
“Why give him anything?”
“Just because he’s not blind doesn’t mean he’s rich, does it?”
He didn’t need from me. The morning service, shachris, ended. The phony started his routine as everyone wound phylacteries and folded prayer shawls. I headed for Bluma.
“Good morning, how are you today?” she asked.
“Fine, how are you?”
“Thank God,” she answered.
Why hadn’t I thanked God? I offered her another five-dollar bill. She wouldn’t accept it. I insisted.
“No, no, it’s not right,” she protested.
“Why not?” I queried.
“You can’t afford it,” she said mercilessly.
“How do you know I can’t afford it?” I demanded.
“You’re not rich,” she stated with such conviction it was almost a taunt.
I was amazed that she wouldn’t take my money. A beggar not taking a five-dollar bill! What was the world coming to! I thought her obstinacy might be caused by my appearance. Sartorially, I am the Jackie Robinson of shachris. I broke the color line: I wear blue jeans. I also broke the collar line: I can’t believe that God turns away because in ninety-degree weather I wear a polo shirt from Alexander’s.
Indignantly I asked, “You think I’m not rich because I don’t wear a coat and tie and my hair is too long?”
Bluma’s eyes grew fiery with frustration. I had offended her.
“You’re not a hippie. I can see that.”
“Then how do you know I’m not a rich man?” I demanded, my voice rising.
Bluma practically rolled her eyes in frustrated horror at my obtuseness as I stood there proferring the five-dollar bill. Then she stared directly into my eyes with what I was to come to know as one of her use-your-head looks.
“Because you give and the rich don’t give!”
What could I say? She had proved her point. I was overwhelmed. So I said nothing. I felt a little foolish. That always happens when I try to do a mitzvah, a good deed. I had embarrassed Bluma. I should have known that an old Jewish woman who travels the synagogue circuit dressed like Dom DiMaggio would not be a stickler for style.
Gently pushing my money away, she said softly, “Save it. You might need it, too.”
What could I say? I decided to tell the truth.
“Listen, Bluma, you’re right. We’re not rich.”
“See,” she gloated, “I could tell. Bluma knows.”
“Yes, but I never would have offered it to you if we couldn’t afford it.”
Then Bluma was a little perplexed.
“If you don’t take it, Bluma, I’ll have to find some
one else to take it.”
“You sure? You wouldn’t be tricking me now?”
“No, I promise you. I brought it for you. Please....”
“Only if you’re telling the trute.” Bluma isn’t too good with “th.”
“I am.”
She accepted it. As she put it into her pocket, who came running our way but the phony. He’s blind on the subway, but in the shadows of the shtibl, he can identify a five-dollar bill at a hundred paces. He came dashing down the corridor. As he approached, he simultaneously increased his speed and his suggested ailments. His pumping legs fell lame, his eyes grew dim, his shoulder sagged, his back buckled, his arm slackened, and he hurtled forward! Bluma and I sensed we were watching medical history. Another twenty yards and approaching the speed of sound, he would have buried himself alive. No mean feat. In spite of what we knew about him, we were awed by such a performance. How Isaacson beats him to the pushke is beyond me! The joker slammed on his brakes. He didn’t waste any time.
“A little bread for the children,” he moaned. “Oy, a little something?”
Kagan's Superfecta: And Other Stories Page 16